Imagine if you will, if the Adolescents and Josie And The Pussycats got hammered, and had a crazy night of wild unprotected sex in the romantic confines of a Motel 6. Well now that this image has left your head, you can finally understand the kickass love child of this unexpected union that is TacocaT.

I had the pleasure of seeing these folks a few years back with Schoolyard Heroes, a band who I disdain with a seething passion, (but that’s for a different time). Anyhoo, Tacocat mesmerized me and those around me with an up-beat poppy post-punk style, that just makes you want to love and dance, kinda like an audio Hippy-Flip. Besides being supportive of dyslexia; TacocaT just warps you back to a simpler time of Freshman year. A time when you only want to go to first base, when you’re saving for that sick volcano, when you’re living in your parents basement, and when you’re really high and realize Jack Black was in the movie Waterworld. To top it all off, if you look at the picture above, there’s another surprise….Twins!

So by combining twins, fun, and slightly demented teen punk-pop, we find that TacocaT really is a truly riveting band, straight from Seattle who you all should hear, see, and feel. They receive an A for automatically ass-kicking.

If you are as lazy as me, you probably want to download music off the internet without working very hard. This article covers a very basic method of downloading streaming music. It does not cover how to torrent music, which most people know how to do and is generally a better, although less legal, method. There are very few advantages to this method, save that as far as I know, it would be virtually impossible to contract viruses. That said for legality reasons I neither use this method nor support your use of this method for anyway that breeches terms of service, copyright infringement, nor endangers legality of media recording sites, rights, and their respective owners, and in no way support you doing so. With that in mind, if rather than torrenting a ten gig discography, you prefer to hand pick songs and mixes (with no download link) off of YouTube, 8tracks, Soundcloud, whatever, then read on, pirate.

Download/Playback Streaming Music/Videos from YouTube, Playlist.com, and more

First, this method does not work for downloading from myspace. So, know that.

Two things here:

1. If you’re the least bit tech savvy, and use a pc, click here, and it should explain itself.

2. If you are less than tech savvy, need an easier way, or otherwise have a Mac, this is an alternate, perhaps even easier method. As long as you’re using Firefox, this really couldn’t be much simpler. Netvideohunter is a Firefox add-on designed specifically for this purpose. If you aren’t already using Firefox, join the rest of us in the 21st century and download it. Read on!

Download Netvideohunter, allow it to install, update, and do whatever else it needs to do.

Restart Firefox, as you were likely prompted to do. Now that Netvideohunter is installed, you should see its small playback icon in the bottom of the browser. Click on it to bring up the Netvidehunter explorer. It should have a big screen and a list (most likely blank) of recently streamed music and/or videos.

You are now ready to download from music sources like Playlist.com! You’ve already completed the steps to playback or download streamed content from any site that hosts music as a standard music file (.mp3, .mp4, .wma, etc). To begin the process, simply go to the site, start playing the file, bring up the Netvideohunter explorer, locate the file on the list, then either click to play or to download the file.

To download from a source like YouTube or Pandora Radio, you first need an audio converter. Files on these sites are packaged as .flv (flash video) and unless you are endowed of a more advanced technical knowledge than I (and thus really shouldn’t be using this guide) you probably will not be able to play them back on your computer or mobile device. This is easily fixed. Download an application like any audio converter, MPEG Streamclip, or any number of freeware applications available on the web.

UPDATE: One of the sites I linked here for downloads from myspace seems to no longer be working, there is a method of downloading from any site using safari, which if you are highly motivated I suggest you read up on here. The former site I linked, file2hd, had a pay option intended to allow you download from sites like myspace, but upon my own use and several forum posts it seems it is no longer effective for this. I am however, happy to be proven wrong if anybody has information contrary.

UPDATE: PART 2. This no longer works with the website 8tracks.com after, some emailing with them, I took down the links. Likewise while streaming their music netvideo hunter no longer works to download their files. That said they are literally hundreds of applications to download streaming music legally, so if you find yourself familiar with this method you may wish to search around a bit more.

My apologies and good luck!

UPDATE FOR THE THIRD TIME: http://keepvid.com/ is a great open source video downloader, it doesn’t require the download of an add on like NetVideo Hunter, I haven’t used it for streaming music and my sense it might be a little trickier to use for that than NetVideo Hunter, but! If you find yourself on a school, work, or anywhere else computer where you can’t use NetVideo Hunter, and you would really like the video your streaming, now you can download away.